Moska
Sr Member
Hello, friends.
I bought this kit 30 years ago. In London, in 1995, at the Forbidden Planet store when it was still on New Oxford Street. I remember there were many kits on sale, and I took advantage of the opportunity to buy almost all the Alien series kits, Jurassic Park dinosaurs from Horizon, some Batman kits, and so on.
All those kits have remained untouched on my shelves until now. It was time to make something from the Alien saga, and I decided to start with the Halcyon 1/72 Dropship.
The kit was quite disappointing: the fit of some parts was quite poor; the panel lines, although engraved, were very thick and had strange reliefs; there were no rivets; the missiles were very basic and had very thick fins; the cockpit was so poor and basic it could be considered nonexistent; the cross-folded pylons were incomplete; the weapons pods were a single block; the decals were very thick and hard…
These are the improvement works I performed:
- Sanded all surfaces thoroughly to smooth them out and remove the reliefs from the panel lines.
- Panel rivets were made with a rivet simulation tool.
- Weapons pods were built from scratch.
- All missiles with 0.25 mm thick fins were built from scratch.
- Openings in the cross-folded pylons and other areas were covered with styrene sheet.
- Cockpit was built from scratch.
- Ferro and Spunkmeyer figures created from modified pilots from another kit.
- Landing gear improvements.
I had to add a large "patch" to the rear landing gear to keep the craft level when landing on the ground. I haven't found any reference to this problem anywhere. Did I misinterpret the instructions?
- New metal sensors on the nose.
- Front and engine lighting.
- Simulation of the lower ramp.
For the paint finish, I used pre-shading, and the final color is a mix of Tamiya khaki and olive drab.
I also made new decals for the "Bug Stomper" emblem and the angle indicators for the side thrusters. For the emblem, I first had to paint a white circle on which to place the decal. The yellow and black markings were painted with a mask and airbrush.
This is, for now, the only photo I've taken of the finished model. I hope to add more, better-quality photos later.
Next: Narcissus.
I hope you like it.
Rafa
I bought this kit 30 years ago. In London, in 1995, at the Forbidden Planet store when it was still on New Oxford Street. I remember there were many kits on sale, and I took advantage of the opportunity to buy almost all the Alien series kits, Jurassic Park dinosaurs from Horizon, some Batman kits, and so on.
All those kits have remained untouched on my shelves until now. It was time to make something from the Alien saga, and I decided to start with the Halcyon 1/72 Dropship.
The kit was quite disappointing: the fit of some parts was quite poor; the panel lines, although engraved, were very thick and had strange reliefs; there were no rivets; the missiles were very basic and had very thick fins; the cockpit was so poor and basic it could be considered nonexistent; the cross-folded pylons were incomplete; the weapons pods were a single block; the decals were very thick and hard…
These are the improvement works I performed:
- Sanded all surfaces thoroughly to smooth them out and remove the reliefs from the panel lines.
- Panel rivets were made with a rivet simulation tool.
- Weapons pods were built from scratch.
- All missiles with 0.25 mm thick fins were built from scratch.
- Openings in the cross-folded pylons and other areas were covered with styrene sheet.
- Cockpit was built from scratch.
- Ferro and Spunkmeyer figures created from modified pilots from another kit.
- Landing gear improvements.
I had to add a large "patch" to the rear landing gear to keep the craft level when landing on the ground. I haven't found any reference to this problem anywhere. Did I misinterpret the instructions?
- New metal sensors on the nose.
- Front and engine lighting.
- Simulation of the lower ramp.
For the paint finish, I used pre-shading, and the final color is a mix of Tamiya khaki and olive drab.
I also made new decals for the "Bug Stomper" emblem and the angle indicators for the side thrusters. For the emblem, I first had to paint a white circle on which to place the decal. The yellow and black markings were painted with a mask and airbrush.
This is, for now, the only photo I've taken of the finished model. I hope to add more, better-quality photos later.
Next: Narcissus.
I hope you like it.
Rafa
